Determined BU volleyball squad eager to right last year’s wrong

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This article was published 19/02/2019 (1892 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

BRANDON — It was Tuesday afternoon, 48 hours before the biggest game of the year and Seth Friesen was reminded about how it all went bad a year ago.

The fourth-place Brandon University Bobcats had gone the distance but lost a best-of-three Canada West quarter-final series to the fifth-place Winnipeg Wesmen. The bitter defeat, coming on home court, was a shot to the gut.

For all their experience and wealth of talent, the Bobcats had fallen short.

“You can’t forget that, for sure,” said Friesen, BU’s fourth-year left side. “That’s not the way you want anything to end, it was painful. I think our expectations were higher on ourselves. It wasn’t the way we wanted or expected it to end.”

Friesen wasn’t alone.

“That was definitely one of the lowest points of my volleyball career,” admitted setter Reece Dixon. “I remember being pretty upset and depressed about it and that’s what pushed me through the summer to really play hard and find our best here and get past the quarter-finals.”

A year later, with only a few lineup changes, the Bobcats are back — reinvigorated. Ranked No. 1 in the country since January and rolling along on a 16-game winning streak, BU won the Canada West regular-season title with a 20-2 record and earned home-court advantage for each round of the post-season until the U Sports national championship, slated for Quebec City in mid-March.

They are a unique blend of homegrown talent and international star power guided by head coach Grant Wilson, a Brandon product who has spent the better part of three decades working his way from the high school ranks in the late 1980s to the pinnacle of his profession at BU.

The Bobcats boast local talent such as the 6-8 Friesen, Alberta-born Dixon and a trio of superb international players, including first-year Swiss import Robin Baghdady, a powerful 6-9 left side from Geneva, and Aussies Elliott Viles, a 6-4 right side with dazzling leaping ability, and shutdown 6-8 middle James Weir.

Weir, in his fifth and final year at BU, has dual Canadian-Australian citizenship by virtue of being born in Saskatoon and qualifies as a non-import, which is a huge bonus under the current two-import limit in U Sports volleyball.

Viles and Weir have played at the international level for Australia and are candidates to play on the country’s senior national team. For now, though, their mission is to reach the national championship tournament, preferably as the top seed.

“That’s the goal every season — to win it all and we have a really good shot this year,” said Viles, third-year player who was named a second-team all-Canadian last season. “We like where our game’s at, we like the talent we have on the team but you know, you have one bad game and it can all fall apart. So we’ll focus on Thursday against Calgary and hopefully keep moving from there.”

A mid-season sweep of the two-time defending national champion Trinity Western, vaulting BU past the Spartans into the No. 1 ranking, was probably the biggest in-season statement the Bobcats could make.

Wilson, however, saw his players rededicate themselves to the task in the off-season but he made other modifications, bringing in a local company — Outperforme Athletics — to help monitor each player’s specific off-court training program while also enlisting the aid of Maddie McCallum, an instructor who takes the team through weekly joga sessions designed to improve flexibility, muscle stablizing and mindfulness training. Joga, for the uninitiated, is yoga for jocks.

Now his seventh year at the helm of the program since taking over from Russ Paddock, Wilson made technical changes to allow more comprehensive pre-scouting. Tuesday’s two-hour practice, for instance, was preceded by a detailed discussion of tendencies and substitution patterns employed by the Calgary Dinos, this week’s quarter-final opponent.

So, the Bobcats should be well prepared to take the next step.

“No. 1, the core of our group is in their fourth year,” said Wilson, 50. “We have a couple of fifth-year guys and we have some younger guys but I think we have some guys who have progressively gotten better physically and mentally.

“We also had the disappointment of losing in the first round of the playoffs the last two years and last year’s loss on our home court really stung. I think that’s been a pretty big motivator for our guys. They’ve really bought in to what we’re doing on and off the court to get better and I feel like with our experience, their physicality — getting bigger and better — they’ve come in highly motivated and really pushed each other.”

Wilson relies on his team’s star players but he takes a long view to player development to make the entire enterprise a success. BU’s ability to recruit, as Canada West’s smallest school, is handicapped by a more limited academic program.

Enter players such as fourth-year middle Mason Metcalf, who was a three-sport star at Carman Collegiate before being recruited by Wilson. The 6-6 Metcalf was more interested in basketball and hockey, where he was an all-star at the provincial level before deciding to focus on volleyball.

“I think Grant liked the aspect that I played multiple sports and you can adapt and he saw room for growth,” said Metcalf. “That first year was a lot of growing and learning things that I didn’t know before, coming from a small town.”

Metcalf is now firmly established as a BU starter.

“That’s why I recruited him — he was a big, lanky athlete,” said Wilson. “He had really never committed to volleyball. At the time, he was playing left side and I told him if he was looking to come to BU, I wanted to put him in the middle, and as luck would have it, he chose Brandon University. He’s a starter now and he’s right behind James Weir as the all-time blocks leader in our program. He’s made huge strides.”

Another example of this approach is fifth-year libero Brady Nault, who considered a number of U.S. college baseball scholarship offers after graduating from Westwood Collegiate before deciding on BU, his only volleyball opportunity.

“I’m a big believer in recruiting athletes, not volleyball players,” added Wilson. “I think it can help if it’s a big, high-end athlete who’s been doing it for sure, but I also look at and say, ‘That kid’s been playing volleyball 11 months of the year with coach A, coach B and coach C; how much better can I really make them when they get here?’ If it is somebody who’s played hockey and basketball and has only dabbled in volleyball, I like to think I can take that person and progress him into a better volleyball player, long term.”

The program’s success, since starting from ground zero in 2005, means the Bobcats have a strong local following. Game tickets are sold in advance — a rare occurrence at the U Sports level — and Brandon fans are expected to fill all 1,038 seats with some standing-room-only spectators added at the Healthy Living Centre gym Thursday night.

Friesen, a classically trained pianist, admits he will have some additional stress this week. After acing the Medical College Admissions Test, he is considering whether he will enter medical school next fall or begin his fifth year of eligibility at BU. He has two prospective medical schools lined up.

“Two interviews,” he said with a smile. “One at the U of M on Sunday morning (after a potential Game 3 of the Canada West quarter-final). Yeah, it’s quite the week. And another at Queen’s University in Kingston in March. That’s the week after nationals.”

mike.sawatzky@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @sawa14